Losing Gracefully
by Rai-Child
Summary: But when everything was said and done, Ino found herself glad to have been tripped at the last leg of the race. Oneshot. InoSaku, SasuSaku, SasuNaru.


Losing Gracefully

Oneshot

By: Rai-Child

Fandom: Naruto

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters.

Summary: But when everything was said and done, Ino found herself _glad _to have been tripped at the last leg of the race. Oneshot. InoSaku, SasuSaku, SasuNaru.

Author's Note: _Written in one go- because Steven has gone to Disneyland Paris and I have no one to talk to. Lol :3 Loneliness makes me write. When I should be doing my German homework, but never mind. 0.o; This is very wordy, just a warning. I don't know exactly what I was thinking when I started this…_

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Yamanaka Ino had always been a winner. In _absolutely everything _she deemed important.

From keeping her teammates in check, to comparing herself with other girls in her year- she had always thought herself to have come out on top. Constantly. Not even her father could match her, most memorably when it had come down to the argument over the last of the 'Hyuuga Neji's Special-Formula Shampoo'. Inoichi had been the one to walk, greasy-haired and sulking, down to the store the next day, whilst his daughter had gone off with some guy she barely knew to attend a party with people she didn't even like.

There was drinking and dancing and boys. It was enough.

It is for this reason, because of her obnoxiously loud and flirtatious personality, that Ino had finally managed to surprise the one person she never thought she would.

Herself.

She had never taken a moment to stop after a particular dramatic outburst or mood swing, never contemplated her own behaviour. Because it was _hers, _that made it okay. She was impulsive, and even worse still, never shut down. Never stopped. Always looking for something new to amuse her.

When it happened, she didn't physically bat an eyelid, despite the immediate round of incoherent screeching that went on in her head.

One of her longest-running playthings, and indeed one of the most entertaining, had been the rather odd daily exchanges between herself, Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura. It was widely known that the Uchiha heir had more admirers than he had fingers and toes combined, and then again that two of his most devoted fans had attended the Academy at the same time that he did.

Ino had finally lost. It had taken several years, a rather unorthodox trip to Orochimaru, much name-calling and finally an engagement, but it had happened nevertheless.

They were close. Like some unspoken bond of sisterhood had eventually broken through all of the venom that their younger days had spawned, but still, when Sakura turned to her with an odd glint in jade eyes, Ino's unbreakable exterior had been momentarily knocked-

_"I have some news, Ino-pig." _The term was still used, if only for old time's sake, almost affectionate in its new setting. Even after what seemed like an age had passed, (both girls were eighteen at the time), they still fought rather half-heartedly over everything they always had done as children. And though it wasn't that Ino _liked _Sasuke as such, more like the title and fame that came attached, when her long-time rival made that simple declaration-

_"Sasuke-kun and I are going to be married."_

-Ino knew that what felt like a lifetime's worth of feuding had just come to a very abrupt end. And she was far from happy with the final result.

It was the simple, immature notion that the pink-haired girl _shouldn't have_ what she herself couldn't reach, that acted as fuel for the fire.

_"Oh, Sakura- that's great!" _She had smiled; almost delirious, physically numbing at the extremities of her hands and feet due to her attempts to rein in her Chakra. Later, when it was only flatmates and trusted friends Chouji and Shikamaru who could hear her, she had gone about the rather therapeutic motions of smashing up her room in a rage with very little dignity.

She had lost touch with the real Yamanaka Ino, or perhaps, she was only just getting to know her.

For the first time in her life, the blonde sat in silence and worked through exactly what had happened not a few hours ago. It wasn't as hard as she would have previously expected, after all, she had seen Shikamaru during his long thinking sessions. Despite not coming to an _immediate _conclusion about any 'corrective action', it was ironic that her epiphany of sorts would come during what she saw as the pinnacle of her defeat, so to speak.

She walked quietly, demurely after Sakura; hands folded neatly under the sleeves of her formal kimono, her smile seemingly tattooed onto her face. It never wavered. Not through the rings. Not through the speech. Not through the 'you may kiss the bride', during which the dark-haired young man dropped a rather dry, quick kiss onto his new bride's powdered cheek. The small crease inbetween his brows gave away more than words could, but nothing was said.

Ino pulled through for her best friend turned rival, the one person she could truly refer to as sharing a love-hate relationship with her. She had been the one to pin up Sakura's hair in those ornate clips she had brought as a wedding-gift, she had been the one to fix her make-up. She had stood there with that same fixed smile, encouraging despite the fact that she thought she was dying inside.

Therefore Sakura had no reason to suspect Yamanaka Ino to be anything other than the 'second best' that she now privately labelled her as. After all, without Sasuke, there was nothing left, right? Ino had had other lovers, but never anything serious. No future. She wouldn't amount to anything memorable when it came to romance...

But when everything was said and done, Ino found herself _glad _to have been tripped at the last leg of the race.

She was finding increasingly, ever since the seeds of suspicion were planted from the wedding, that losing gracefully was much more gratifying than winning ever could be. In this situation, it seemed that she was much more powerful than she initially realised.

Just when it seemed that she had lost all grip on the object of their constant tug-of-war, a certain revelation had confirmed that all wasn't lost. Following the weeks spent watching obsessively, mentally probing every little detail that Sakura retained behind that forehead of hers, she had finally found the chink in the Uchiha armour.

First came the idea that Sasuke's actions _must _have been for the sake of his dying clan. After all, it had been cut down to only himself and his sociopath of an older brother, and therefore there _had _to be a woman at some point. Someone with a functioning uterus. Ino clung to the thought that it _wasn't _because of Sakura's alleged superiority over her, and more down to random choice. It was logical- the medic-nin was his teammate, and still completely smitten. Easily manipulated.

The chain of thought that led to the second notion came about rapidly after seeing the Uchiha heir blatantly doing... certain activities... with his _other _blissfully smitten teammate.

_Thank you, Uzumaki Naruto... _It seemed that Ino had finally found some degree of usefulness in the Kyuubi container after all, even though he was still an idiotic brat as far as she was concerned.

She found she didn't care. She didn't care that the person she had always dubbed 'her Sasuke' currently had his hands in the pants of someone who wasn't her. It didn't matter that he was married. She wouldn't have cared if it was to anyone_ other _than Haruno Sakura. _Uchiha _Sakura.

This was a bigger feat than stealing hair-products from her father. Bigger than yelling at Shikamaru for being lazy. Ino was an artist, and finally she had found a big enough project to work on. Everything else seemed painfully insignificant in comparison.

Once Sakura clicked, once she knew that there was no love in it, that her reproductive system was only on hire, it was only a matter of time. The beautiful part was that the blonde had done absolutely nothing, simply patiently waited until Sasuke's luck ran out. Despite the yelling and a fist colliding with Naruto's face, everything had been concluded with two words...

_"I understand." _And a line drawn under the whole, messy situation. Ino became a regular at the newly revived Uchiha mansion, and pretended to be clueless about the goings on between Sasuke and Naruto as Sakura sobbed into her shoulder. Sasuke and Sakura were husband and wife, but privately very little was said. Sasuke still kept his lover, despite how guilty Naruto felt over the whole situation, and Sakura talked to Ino instead. Told her everything. The blonde didn't have to pry behind her eyes anymore, not when she had the entire contents of someone's heart pulsing in her hand.

_"You're the only one who gets it, Ino... You're the only one who understands-"_

_"I know it came as a shock, Sakura, but really..." _Ino had paused as they stood together out in the extensive gardens, knee-deep in the long, unruly grass. _"He's a cold, unfeeling asshole. You know that better than anyone. You've let him have Naruto, you've let him have his clan and his status, so why not just focus on _you _and what's going to happen next in _your _life?" _Tearful, aqueous green eyes turned on her and set there, Ino could feel her gaze burning into her back. It seemed that the game wasn't over, it had merely come to a temporary stop.

It wasn't Sasuke she had to win.

It was Sakura.

She wasn't attracted to girls in the slightest and had absolutely no experience whatsoever, excluding the rather drunken make-out session with Temari that Tenten had taken various pictures of for blackmail purposes. It hadn't felt any different than kissing Inuzuka Kiba, or that guy that stopped by the flower shop sometimes.

Perhaps it wasn't that she _needed_ Sakura as such. Maybe just wanted to mess with her, like she felt she herself had been messed with. Still, there was _something _there, and, ignoring how close it was to both love _and_ hate, she simply let the other girl become tangled in her own, misguided affections.

It was shocking how fast things got out of hand. Ino heard them arguing fairly often, normally after having left Sakura to her own devices. The first time had been through a closed door just to one side of the entrance hall; she had heard the yelling as she went to leave. She didn't linger, the idea of the fight itself enough to satisfy, and she returned to her flat feeling very much triumphant. She wouldn't tell Chouji what she was grinning about.

The rift between the newly wedded couple was slowly becoming increasingly obvious. One evening, Sakura's control broke and Ino found herself pinned to the counter during one of her shifts at the shop, the sharp corner of the till digging into her shoulder as her mouth was fiercely invaded by the pink-haired kunoichi. It was odd, how their sport had grown to accommodate others, and again how it had changed in nature. Really, now it was more about the issues between the Uchiha and his heartbroken spouse.

Sakura found herself determined to do him damage. To make him _care _at least, instead of the cold, impassive air he always employed, his eyes hard, impenetrable... Whatever her reasons were, whilst Sasuke and Naruto were sneaking off in the middle of the night, she herself was often wandering off to find the person who was helping her with her counter-attack. There was very little they didn't try, regardless of whether or not dark eyes were on them. Sakura found at least a little comfort in her friend, and therefore everything was the desired 'okay'.

Ino felt like the winner she always had been, regardless of her earlier fall. After all, she still had her rival, of sorts. Sakura was miserable. And she knew this feeling would last, just as long as Uchiha Sasuke was still breathing and determined to resurrect his clan.

And willing to cast a blind eye over the fact that, on the present day, his seven-months pregnant wife was off performing the amazing feat of climbing through Ino's window in the early hours of the morning, slipping under the covers and wrapping an arm around the blonde's waist.

Ino could feel Sasuke's precious heir _and _Sakura's tears pressed against her back. Blue eyes opened lazily in recognition, and she laced her fingers with those resting on her hip, carefully coaxing them from their position knotted in the over-sized shirt of Chouji's she always wore to bed. She let a slow smile spread across her face, as she contemplated breaking the hand that was intertwined with hers.

_Such a silly little girl..._

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_End. X3_

_Ally_


End file.
